1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic steering apparatus for a vehicle, to automatically park the vehicle without recourse to steering by a driver.
2. Description of the Related Art
Automatic steering apparatuses for vehicles are already known from Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Nos. 3-74256 and 4-55168. These automatic steering apparatuses for vehicles utilize an actuator of a conventionally well-known electrically powered steering device, and are adapted to automatically carry out reverse parking and longitudinal parking of a vehicle by controlling the actuator based on a relationship between distance of movement of the vehicle and a steering angle which are stored in advance.
When the automatic parking operation is to be carried out by the automatic steering apparatus, the vehicle is first stopped at a starting position, which is in a given positional relationship to a target or completion position at which the vehicle is to be parked. The automatic parking control operation is then started at the starting position. Therefore, if the vehicle is not correctly stopped, a deviation is generated from the target position which the vehicle reaches using the automatic parking control operation. However, in the prior art, a driver stops the vehicle at the starting position by visual estimation of the starting position. Hence, it is difficult to avoid an error due to a deviation in the starting position.